Thursday, January 29, 2015

Against the Country
by Ben Metcalf has a tone that makes me wonder what if Ambrose Bierce and Mark
Twain became one. Well they have in Ben Metcalf. A ne’er do well moves his family from Illinois
to rural Virginia, a place they chose because they ran out of gas money. As
good a reason as any. Well this southern rural life ain’t as easy as one might
think. Much of the remembrances start with the promises made when the razing of
a shed would yield a swimming pool or a basketball court. Instead the dreams
were dashed and the murdered shed became a refuge pile much to the chagrin of
neighbors and their honking cars as they passed by. The son is our narrator and
he tells of a horrifying childhood. It is like watching a hockey game for the
fights or a car race for the crashes.We
read about this family to see how much worse it can get. And we chuckle as we
read, not because of our cruelty, but because of Metcalf’s brilliance with words.

Now we must remember point of view, so I provide this
opening paragraph of the Chapter “O Goochland” “O Goochland, O county of blood
and pus, O breaker of families, O bed of agriculture’s deceit; older creature
than the nation you betrayed; promiser of plenty, provider of naught; stalker
of happiness, thief of hope; butcher of nerves, baker of brains; proud home of
the skill-less, luckless Bulldogs; site of my elementary through high school
education;” So the horrors and his description of said horrors of remembrances
of a youth. He tells us his education happened on the schoolbus. Let me ask
you, do we have more or less snow now than when you were a kid?See what I mean. It is the perspective, the
point of view, POV!

Goochland!! Great name for a county. So many connotations. At one point I’m wondering if the narrator of
this book becomes Anton Chigurh in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. Our narrator has had a troubled youth with
many vivid and horrible images of that troubled youth. His ramblings about his
youth reminds me of the classic “Four
Yorkshiremen Sketch” by the pre Monty
Python group.

This work of fiction is a string of vignettes, stories,
metaphors, treatises on literature all to help make a point about growing up
and the process; metaphors pure and simple. He hones in on a word, or an
object, or an incident, or a fuzzy memory and wraps it in a story and concludes
it with an aphorism. I love the stroll down Literary Lane, the allusions, the
memories, and the metaphors. It is similar to Montaigne’s essays, but fiction. It
is about his father and Metcalf’s way of doing it is familiar as in my own
version called, My Father wasn’t Handy.
All I know is “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

EST

About Me

I retired in Feb 2012 after teaching English since 1974 in private and public schools. I'm a father of three. I have twin granddaughters and a grandson. I have two younger sisters. I live in Woodstock, GA and I travel in a Scamp.
ted.nellen@gmail.com